Bike, Lectures, Grad work applications and the Opera

I am becoming so frustrated at the amount of work I seem to have to do at the moment. When I get any free time, I have to apply for graduate positions for next year, which all close at the ridiculously early time of the end of March or the start of April. I am so sick of sucking up to global financial services behemoths that I feel I want to chuck it in and become a pop star or a writer or something else creative. Sigh. Anyway I’ve created an hour for myself in which I will write and write until the right side of my brain feels nurtured again.

Last entry I described some of the interesting characters at college and there are so many I still have to tell you about, but this entry I thought I would mention something that deserves to be talked about; the food. John’s college provides its residents with three meals a day, meaning that no cooking and the effort associated with this is required. It sounds good in theory and was one of the prime reasons why I chose John’s over other colleges, however like all theory, in practice everything is totally different.

For Tea and Lunch, we are provided with a hot meal and there are pizza and sandwich making facilities and a decent salad bar. Again, in theory this sounds ok, however, I don’t know whether it is the ridiculously small budget the college allocates to feeding us, or whether the chefs are to blame, but the food is bad, really bad. Caz and Gabbi aren’t coping so well with it, most nights they have to resort to eating bowls of cereal or fruit.

After weeks of observing the food provided, I am quite sure that I have calculated a pattern. With a certain degree of confidence I have constructed a model for what food to expect, I’ll explain it now. Firstly the meat generally stays the same, but its degree of preparation varies as each night passes. On the first night in the pattern, the meat is seen in its most pure and least prepared state, which I dub ‘slab of meat’. Really a slab of meat is what it is; a thick chunk of meat that is tough, burnt on the outside and red on the inside and is often found with globs of fat and arteries running through it. Perhaps even worse is the ‘gravy’ that they provide, that consists of the fatty juices in which the ‘slabs’ have been stewing in whilst cooking. “Gravy?” The dinner ladies ask, to which I invariably open my eyes widely and shake my head side to side furiously.

On the second night, the meat is seen in its second state of preparedness, ‘chunks of meat’. On these nights, the same meat is now sliced into smaller, yet still quite big, chunks and given an international name, such as ‘Bordeaux beef’, ‘Moroccan beef’ or simply ‘beef curry’. The same arteries and globs and fat can be found in the meat, but this time the ‘gravy’ is included with the meat. On the following night, the degree of preparation increases once more and the meat is seen in mince form, which is served as either a pasta sauce (also given fancy names such as aribiatta) or a ‘chilli con carne’ to be served with nachos. In this state, there are no more arteries or globs of fat to be seen; they are well hidden in the mince. Then the fourth day the meat will be seen in its final and most prepared state, as hamburgers. The next night a different meat appears in its most pure form.

Anyway enough whining, I probably sound like an Englishman or something. Since my last entry I’ve done quite a few interesting things, despite being so busy. On ‘Canberra Day’, which was a public holiday, I went on a charity bike ride. Caz and I had been thinking about doing it for a while, but it ultimately took Vijey to use numerous strategies to convince us to go. In the end we gave in and said we would go. After the marathon four day four hundred kilometre ride we did last year, Caz and I felt ready to take on anything, after all it was only 25 kilometres.

So whist everyone was sleeping in on their day off, Caz and I and all the other cyclists woke up early. I gave Caz a ‘wake up’ phone call, in which she moaned in annoyance, I replied with a simple ‘…yup’ and hung up. After waking up properly and getting some breakfast, all the riders from Johns congregated outside the bike sheds. Soon enough we were rolling along with the crisp morning air rushing through our messy bed hair. We had to ride to the starting point of the ride before we started the 25km event. It seemed that the whole of Canberra was there. There were old people, young people, professionals, kids with training wheels, mothers, fathers, brothers, lovers, mascots, organisers and then there was us; 30 or so tired and dreary college students, all wearing the college colours.

We took a place in the starting line up, which spanned a good 500 meters. The high pitched clinging of bicycle bells rose up as the riders anticipated starting. The kids were laughing and asking, “When are we stating Mummy?” I heard several guys singing ‘Bicycle’ by Queen. I looked down at my front tyre and noticed a thorn sticking out of it. Hmm that shouldn’t be there, I thought and so I yanked it out and then came the sickening sound of air gushing and spewing from the hole. I screamed, “Ahhh a puncture, already, why me?” Caz looked over, somewhat amused. She ripped a bit of the adhesive paper from my arm band and stuck it over the hole, delaying the inevitable deflating of my tyre. I was worrying to myself, Will I make it? Will I have to turn back? Why me?

The actual start was a bit of an anti-climax. Despite how refreshing the diverse mix of riders looked, it meant that the start was incredibly slow. I had to walk my bike in order to stay at the slow pace, but in time the field stretched out and Caz and I went on the hunt weaving in and out of people, pedalling like maniacs and executing pincer movements, where we each would overtake an unsuspecting rider from a different side thoroughly discombobulating them. We sang loudly and proudly as we rode, getting strange looks from riders, but we didn’t care. Our numbers ranged from jazz classics to modern rock. Before we knew it we were in Dickson, where we regularly drive to get pizza when we can’t handle the college food. Then we rode down Northborne Avenue, past Civic and up past and around Parliament House. Hills started to become quite a nuisance and they were getting harder and harder as my tyre deflated. One particular hill I sang a rap song to motivate Caz, “You can do it put your arse in to it,” to which she chuckled in between panting and sang back “I can do it put your back in to it.” Then finally the crest was upon us and we flew downhill screaming “Woooooo.”

Eventually we saw the finish line in the far distance. “Want to sprint home?” I asked Caz, to which she replied “Uh-huh” as she sped up. As we crossed the finish line we were singing loudly, ‘We are the Champions’ (another Queen song coincidentally) and were greeted with cheers from a few people from John’s who had already finished. When we came to a halt I checked the pressure in my tyre, it had very little air left in it, but at least I had made it. We were given a certificate and some fluro bands, which we later discovered, with immense joy, were ‘slap bands’. Remember those?

Caz and I jointly decided that we were in dire need of coffee and cake, so when we got back we showered and headed off to Belconnen to have victory lattes. Well actually Caz had a Chai Latte (With 3 sugars… strange huh?) and I had a cappuccino. We basked in our achievements and thoroughly enjoyed the coffee and cake as we reminisced about the ride.

Exercise that day did not end there for Caz, for a few hours later she was playing or rather dominating in the inter-college tennis final. She won both games 6-0 without even breaking into a sweat and effectively won the final for our college.

The week went by as per normal with the exception of the abundance of graduate work applications that I had to do. These companies demand you to give at least four hours of your time researching and pondering how best to suck up to them. It is absolutely intolerable, but I’m hoping it will all be worth it in the long run.

Anyway, Friday came and it was time for me to give my first ever lecture. The topic was ‘Dealing with Statistics’ and I had to present it in one of the largest lecture theatres on campus, Manning Clark Theatre 3. I arrived early and made my way down to behind the lectern. I was taken aback at how different the theatre looked seen from the perspective of a lecturer. I fiddled with the smooth electronic control system and was pretty confident that I could get all the sound and lights working properly. I logged onto the computer without any fuss, inserted my flash key, loaded the file and sure enough my slides were being projected onto the screen. The starting time was approaching and the theatre was filling up. I paced around the lectern, trying to look busy and important but feeling like an absolute nutter. I tried to avoid eye contact with the students for fear that their eyes would say ‘well get on with it, what are you doing?’ I bent down to get something out of my bag and noticed that the desk next to the lectern could provide me with complete cover. I can always hide under the desk if things go badly, I thought to myself quite ludicrously.

Finally it came time and I dimmed the lights to signal that I was starting and turned the volume of the microphone up. I looked out onto a sea of uncertain faces staring at me, ready to make a snap judgment as soon as I opened my mouth. I began to speak, hesitantly at first, but growing with confidence as I went. I got through a few slides and got up to the bit where I was going to tell a stats joke. When I told it no one laughed, which I expected, but looking out at so many people and not even getting a hint of a reaction was a little disconcerting. I pressed on a little shaken, but nonetheless ok.

What I didn’t realise is how clearly the lecturer can see every student in the theatre. I could identify every person’s posture and body language and was petrified that they were hating the lecture. I think in future when I’m sitting in lectures, I’ll make sure I have positive body language. At one stage I saw Caz walk in and I temporarily stumbled and lost my confidence, but regained it after she took a seat. I didn’t want to appear to be a bad lecturer or speaker, especially to her, that’s why I was temporarily thrown I guess. Anyway I went steaming along, what should you do, what shouldn’t you do, I was preaching like an old person telling off a young kid who happened to kick their ball over the fence. I even got some laughs at times and most people seemed focused on what I was saying, people were even taking notes. It felt quite surreal really. I was just talking seemingly independent of my mind. At times my mind seemed like it wanted to observe itself.

The lecture went on and on until I approached the final slides. A brief look at my watch indicated that I was probably going to finish around 15 minutes early. Darn. Stalling as much as I could I finished the final slide and opened the floor to questions. This was the part I had been dreading the most; I was terribly afraid that someone would ask me a question that I couldn’t answer and would humiliate me in front of everyone. But no one asked a tough question. Even at the end, when students came up to see me privately, they didn’t ask difficult questions. Soon I was staring again at empty seats with the exception of one familiar girl in the back row. I watched her get up and she was smirking as she approached me. Caz thought I had done well and I felt touched that she had given up her time to come and support me. I gave her a hug whilst standing behind the lectern, which felt kind of odd and would have looked strange to anyone who didn’t know she was a friend and not just a random student.

That night Caz and I went to the opera at uni to see one of our friends performing. It certainly was a different and exciting way to spend a Friday night. We rode over to uni, thinking we were 10 minutes late, but in reality we were actually 20 minutes early. Caz rides like a maniac when she is in a hurry, dodging and weaving between people and poles, screaming down narrow corridors into blind corners, but I must admit it was kind of fun. I imagined myself being in a chase scene in a James Bond movie, but a low budget, student version where we had bicycles instead of Aston Martins. We bought the tickets and walked into the theatre. We took a seat and the stage was glowing a dim blue colour and the atmosphere seemed tense in the excitement of what was going to take part.

The singers came out and we spotted Mojo right away. We gawked in awe as her perfect strong voice sung a scene from ‘Die Fladermaus’. It is really common (well for me anyway) to forget about the remarkable talents your friends have and to fall into the comfortable notion that they are just a laid back easy going nice person. When Mojo opened her mouth I was a little shocked to tell you the truth, I know that opera singing is what she does and it is her gift, but actually seeing her perform was another matter. By the way, we call her Mojo because her name is Monica Jones, not for other ‘Austin Powers’ related reasons. The opera finished and we met up with her outside. I couldn’t get over the feeling of being a pathetic giddy schoolgirl, thinking Ooooh we are talking to the star of the show. Of course though she was the same Mojo and after this momentary lapse I thought of her as a I always had; as a friend.

After dropping Mojo home, Caz and I went back to college and watched some Seinfeld and Blackbooks. A perfect end to the week.

As Time Goes By

Well time has certainly been flying by; it is now the fourth week of uni. Work seems to be piling up and most of my old friends from last year have turned into hermits, staying in their rooms studying, only showing their faces for meals. Well perhaps it isn’t quite as bad as all that, but most people definitely seem a lot busier this year.

My corridor is nice and quiet, plus I get a nice view of trees from my third floor window. My neighbour, Gino, is an interesting character. Whenever we meet in the corridors he screams out “Hey Tee-Rav”, with the emphasis on the‘t’. He’d have to be the only person I’ve met who pronounces my name like that. Whilst sitting in my room I often hear him in the corridors booming Chinese phrases to international students. He has long hair and has looks typical of an Italian heritage, the kind of guy that women would find attractive I suspect. Still he is a quiet and considerate neighbour.

Across the hall there is a guy named Alfred from Hong Kong. He was on my corridor last year, so I was happy that there was a familiar face in my corridor. We talk endlessly about cars and the TV programme “Top Gear”, which we both love. I’m not sure why, but he seems to be a target of thieves, of the bike variety especially. Apparently in the past few years he has had 5 bicycles stolen. Each time he buys a new bike, the value of the bike decreases and the value of his new lock increases. I’m thinking at some point he will hire a security guard to protect a $20 kid’s bike from Toys ‘R Us. Anyway in the first week of uni he had his wallet stolen, the poor guy.

I don’t know how, but there is one guy at college that I only ever seem to see in the same spot. It is always on the short path about halfway between college and union house which is made up of hundreds of concrete dots of alternating sizes with gravel in between the gaps. Really it is a stupid design, people take the most random paths trying to step on the concrete spots and avoid bumping into people. I’m sure the number of permutations for walking across the dots would be in the 4 figure ball park. Anyway, it is always here when we are negotiating a haphazard path over the dots that we see each other. “D-man,” I invariably call out to which he always smirks and yells out “Trav-Daddy.” I am always heading off to class, while he is coming back from the gym. I never see him apart from there. Peculiar indeed.

There certainly are a lot of interesting people at college, but I’ll reveal them all when the time is right.

Quite a lot has been happening lately despite the abundance of work I and everyone else seems to have this year. I guess I’ll start where I left off last time.

Firstly, by the end of the first week I had sorted out my timetable and it was a thing of beauty. All my classes were to be held from Monday to Wednesday, which meant that I would get a four day weekend every week. Despite this beautiful arrangement, I had no clashes, really it was a thing of beauty. You know the feeling you get when you find a parking space right by the door of the place you are going to in a really busy street, well it was like that but at least five times better. I woke each day brimming about my good fortune until I attended one of my “Actuarial Control Cycle” lectures. The pompous lecturer declared, “Some people have a clash with the Monday class, if I change it to 2pm is that ok with everyone?”
I hastily looked through my pleasing timetable and noticed that I had a lecture scheduled for that time. “Ahh I have a clash at that time.” I spoke up gingerly, to which my lecturer replied, “Just you? Ok the lecture will be changed to 2pm Mondays.”
He had tarnished my masterpiece of a timetable, now it was no longer perfect; I had a clash. I glared at him through the entire lecture.

Having a clash hasn’t been too bad so far though. The subject that it clashes with is insufferable and it is a real struggle sitting through the length of the lecture that I can actually attend, so I’m not terribly disappointed that I have to miss the other half.

After the first week of uni had finished, I and many other people looked like they needed a stiff drink and to go out and party. I got my fix on Friday night, when a number of us went out to Mombasa and Mooseheads for what turned out to be quite a fun night. At the end of the night I had to hold my arm around a fellow resident so that I could pilot her drunken stagger in the direction of college. Apparently it is a college tradition that people stagger home in each other’s arms after a big night.

Skyfire was the big event of the following Saturday night. Skyfire is apparently an annual tradition in Canberra, where a fireworks display choreographed to music is shown down at the lake. A large group left college early to walk down to the lake, but Caz and I decided to catch up on a bit of work before going. We ended up having a quick dinner at Macca’s, where apparently half the population of Canberra decided to eat. Quite amazingly most were drunk despite it being only 7:30pm. After scoffing the forgettable meal down, we donned jackets and starting walking down to the lake. We walked through the clean crisp night air down an unlit quiet path beside a dirty river, which had a suspiciously shiny glow on its surface. Soon we heard the unmistakable sound of fireworks being set off, which forced us into a respectably paced run. After passing through the grounds of the national gallery, we saw a large group of people who we assumed were going to watch the fireworks. We chased them along a dirt path amongst trees, ducking and weaving until we found a congregation of people sitting on picnic blankets on the grassy banks of the lake looking at the sky in awe whilst munching on food.

We quickly found a spot on the grass to sit and surrendered to the vivacious atmosphere. Despite all the noise and excitement, I felt quite calm and relaxed and just observed the surrounds. Kids screamed and mothers made noises of appreciation. Lovers held each other closely while marvelling at the spectacular display. Bright exuberant flashes of colour in the sky were mirrored by the white lights of camera flashes that flickered and speckled along the crowded banks of the lake. Caz sat beside me and we both had the same look of appreciation on our faces; we were here in Canberra, here for another year.

The display lasted perhaps fifteen minutes and as soon as it stopped we got up and walked home, back along the dark path beside the river.

The next day was a day of study, but to make things interesting, Caz and I decided to go down to the lake, spread out a picnic blanket and study under the shade of a willow tree. It was perhaps one of the only times that I have enjoyed studying, a simple change of surrounds amazingly made studying so much more tolerable. The water jet that we had a curious encounter with a few weeks ago seemed to taunt us, its water blowing on to us and wetting our notes. When we moved, the water seemed to follow us.

After sitting and studying for a while, drama (as it inevitably seems to do) developed. It appeared that a little girl on a bike had lost her father. After we realised this, Caz without even giving it a second thought, admirably ran after her to try and help her find her Dad. I stayed minding our things watching helplessly as she ran off to catch up with the girl. Apparently she caught up with the girl and returned her to her somewhat ungrateful mother. And then it was back to study.

On the Sunday night we caught up with an old friend and took off up to the peak of a local mountain, set up a telescope and marvelled at the stars. Truly it was a spectacular view. The surrounds were so peaceful, at times not a sound could be heard and the air was crisp and fresh. Stars dazzled and twinkled in the sky as we looked up in awe at them. One thing that Canberra does have going for it is that it has far fewer lights than Melbourne, making perfect conditions for viewing stars.

I started tutoring on the Wednesday and continued on the Thursday. I was so nervous and worked myself into quite a state before starting. I was imagining that the students were going to ask really tough questions and then if I couldn’t answer them they would ask why I was given the job. Remarkably though, the students were all friendly and didn’t ask difficult questions. Actually I guess I quite enjoyed teaching them.

Thursday night was commencement dinner, which is the first of several formal dinner functions held at the college. Typically at these dinners, students dress up to the extent that they look mature and incredibly respectable and then they go there and act quite the opposite; they get drunk on the free liquor and behave like children or perhaps animals. Anyway, this dinner was more subdued than previous ones I had been to and was mildly enjoyable. The food wasn’t spectacular, but it was of higher standard than a regular John’s meal.

It is a proud college tradition to go out and have a big night after each formal dinner. Naturally I wanted to respect this tradition, so I asked around to get an idea of who was going out. I ended up going with a big group of people to get coffee and then the plan was several that of us would go out after that. The problem was, no one else felt like going out after we had finished our coffee, which left me kind of stranded. Fortunately though, Mi’er noticed my desire to go out and so she agreed to have a quiet drink with me. We went to a bar called “Hippo”, which is a place that is Canberra’s attempt at a suave secluded, funky bar. Although not comparable to my favourite bars in Melbourne, it was a decent substitute. The lighting was dim, the furniture comfy, the décor kitsch and vibrant music engulfed the room. We sat on the dark red seats, drank cocktails and conversed freely until the bar closed for the night. After that we went back to Mi’er’s room, had a few more drinks and chatted until the early hours of the morning. It turned out to be quite an interesting night, the perfect end to the week really.

The weekend consisted mainly of study, with the occasional fun activity mixed in. It seemed to fly by and suddenly it was back to another week of uni. Nothing terribly exciting happened apart from a brief trip up to Mount Ainsle again to see the full moon. Despite it being a cloudy night, the others still insisted on going. “It will be clear once we get up there,” they kept repeating optimistically. So I drove the four of them up there and sure enough we couldn’t see anything but clouds. Caz was the most optimistic of the group constantly declaring that it was clearing up and that we’d be able to see the moon soon. Of course the clouds didn’t clear up, but we ended up had a good time regardless.

There is a long weekend in Canberra this weekend, so apart from work on Thursday, effectively I have a 5 day weekend. I know, you hate me… Until next time, take care.

Forward, by Travvy

Blogging seems to have taken the world by storm and is a medium by which the every day lives of ordinary people, good people, are made public allowing the writer to feel somewhat a sense of stardom. Most blogs sit idly by in a tiny portion of the hard disk of a mighty server somewhere, viewed only by the writer and perhaps a few close friends. However a small percentage are extremely well written and entertain a large audience of curious readers. I must say that I believe my friend Irwin’s blog, http://hoju72.blogspot.com/, fits into the latter category. So it was he who inspired me to start a blog and rediscover my creative side that for years has been crushed with the weight of studying complicated mathematics and investment theorems and other soul destroying work. By the way I am expecting my blog to fall into the first category and hence obscurity.

Back to reality

No matter how long or how pleasurable holidays are, I feel that they are always marred by the fact that they are too short. That is the only criticism of my summer holiday. I know that I have no right to complain, as my holiday was in fact extremely lengthy. I was on holidays for almost three months, a whole season almost, and I got to spend one of those months in Japan with my best mates. Even though I had spent some of the best days of my life and enjoyed most every day, time waits for no one and inevitably it came time to pack up my things and go back to Canberra, back to reality.

I rose early that morning and frantically stuffed last minute items into my car as I tried to beat my self set deadline of leaving by 8 am. I was aiming to get to Canberra around 4pm, so that reception would still be open and I would be able to check into my new room without any drama. So conservatively I estimated that I would need to leave a bit before 8am, allowing for traffic getting through Melbourne.

By about 7:30am my car was looking somewhat amusing. The boot was fully loaded, my bike was nestled in the back passenger bay ensconced with bags and bags of mainly useless items that I felt compelled to take up. The front seat contained a hefty passenger strapped into it; a large heavy old TV. Soon came the time to wave goodbye and pull out of the driveway.

The drive was uninteresting as always. The radio cut out, as it always does, about 50 minutes out of Melbourne and so I was forced, as I always am, to delve into my cassette tape collection. My tape collection is far from impressive by the way. I, like many others, live my life in a world with a vast library of free music in mp3 format that remains on my computer. So, my collection consisted of one or two tapes I had dubbed from one of my CD’s, the Aladdin soundtrack and Queen’s greatest hits.

So there I was buzzing along the hume highway at a conservative 120km/h belting out “Prince Ali” and “We are the champions” in my amusingly well laden car. When I was bored of that I started observing funny town names such as “Beveridge” and rock formations such as “Eric’s crack”. One town, named Holbrook, prides itself on being a submarine town and even sports a large retired submarine in the centre of the town. The problem is though, Holbrook is about 400km away from the ocean, so why they call themselves the submarine town I’ll never know.

Sure enough though, town by town I started getting closer to Canberra. I turned off down the Barton highway and could recall every hill that I had to ride up when I was on a charity bike ride last year. Memories started flooding in and when I saw “Black Mountain Tower”, which is one of the most distinctive landmarks of Canberra I felt a mixture of nervousness of the year that lay ahead and nostalgia of the previous year I had spent. Soon enough I pulled up in the “John’s” carpark and walked through the same halls that I must have walked hundreds of times last year. I was home. Well sort of.

I found my new room, and started transferring my vast mass of junk from my car to my room. Although I was happy to be on the third floor in a nice location, I wasn’t thrilled about walking up and down the stairs carrying my TV and other heavy items. Eventually though I had transferred everything and started assigning all my stuff a place in my room. I was exhausted by the end, but got everything set up except for decorations, which I could do another day. I remember it was hot. Very hot. Uncomfortably so. Perspiration was beading from almost every pore. I must have showered and washed my face a ridiculous number of times.

Soon old friends started arriving at my door. Caz showed up and all the crazy and fun times that we had spent last year gushed through my head causing me to smirk almost the entire length of our conversation. It was really great seeing her again. Later I met up with several other old friends, all who looked different and yet the same. All who were bubbling with the excitement of seeing everyone again and with enthusiasm told the tales of their summers. Yet there were hundreds of new and unfamiliar faces as well. Everything was so similar and familiar, yet so much had seemed to change as well.

O-week kicked off for returning residents that night. The event that night was a “Toga night”, where all the college residents dress up in togas or bed sheets and drink and drink until they get blotto. I decided to opt out of this, partly because I was exhausted from the drive, but mainly because I had an interview the next day. So I drifted into a deep sleep with the loud beat of popular dance songs and the laughter of drunken college students infiltrating and engulfing my hot room.

I donned a suit for the interview the next day. I walked from college over to the “academic skills and learning centre” during the hottest part of the day. The sun beat down on me and my black suit absorbed every colour in the visible spectrum and trapped it inside, but I tried to keep my cool, as I was sure turning up red and sweaty would not leave a good impression. Canberra, unlike Melbourne is based in basically in the middle of nowhere, with no desirable natural features. When Melbourne gets hot, there is always a nice cool breeze that blows off the bay soothing weary souls in its path. When Canberra gets hot, the air seems to stagnate and becomes thick while the heat increases in force as the day goes on. So anyway I turned up, had a brief interview, was completely overdressed it seemed, but nonetheless I was offered the casual maths/stats tutor job and left, thinking “Huh?”

Instead of being excited, which would probably be normal, I spent the whole afternoon in angst about whether I would do well, what it would be like and whether students would ask questions I didn’t know.

There was a cocktail party that evening and I decided to keep going afterwards and head out. So it was off to Mooseheads. Now, Canberra has the reputation of being a sleepy city and possibly one of the lamest cities in Australia, maybe not as bad as Hobart, but definitely a contender for Adelaide. Despite this, with a large student population, the city manages to sustain somewhat of a nightlife. While it is true that this nightlife is compacted into a littering of a few bars, it is still possible to have a fun night unless you are one who loves pub crawls. Mooseheads is the perennial favourite of my fellow college residents. It is a bar that has a downstairs area that has a definite country pub ambiance, which is created by the music that they play and the décor. The middle level is just boring, I’m not even sure what it is for. Upstairs is a dance club, where a DJ mixes the latest dance beats and several funky lights and lasers create a decent club atmosphere.

I decided to head downstairs, which tends to be the favourite area for the John’s kids. The cheap liquor flowed freely and the people on the crowded, sticky dance floor swayed and shook to the country songs. The first years could easily be spotted by the bibs with their names on them that the residents association of the college forced them to wear. It was certainly fun to meet the multitude of bright eyed new people and catch up with the old ones, but most of my good friends weren’t out and I got a bit bored, so I left and ran all the way home. I figured I could use the exercise, plus it got me home quicker.

The party just kept going at college. I woke to hear people rising to get ready for “Fantasy Island”, another big day of drinking. They dressed in curious costumes, started drinking (at about 9am) and boarded the bus that would take them off to a secluded peninsula where they would drink all day. Call me old if you will, but I didn’t feel up to it, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. They got back some time in the afternoon, sunburnt and hammered, yet still drinking.

I spent the days mainly in my room, organising, decorating and preparing. By Saturday night though I felt like going out again and so I planned to head out with one of my good friends Vijey, a charismatic international student from India. I waited patiently in the foyer but he or no one else showed up. After a while though, another group began to form in the foyer, so I decided to head out with them. I knew the entire group from first year with the exception of a girl called Mi’er whom I met for the first time. We all headed to Mooseheads downstairs, got a few drinks and started dancing. We took over a large portion of the dance floor by forming a circle with linked arms in which we danced and jumped around and occasionally pushed unsuspecting people in the middle. For all its rawness and perhaps primitiveness, the atmosphere of Mooseheads downstairs does allow one to feel a connection with your fellow man and the warmth of good friendships.

After we’d had quite enough, we moved on to an African (or maybe Samoan) themed pub. The dance floor here was far more spacious and comfortable and the less mainstream tunes allowed us to have more variety in our dancing. We spent many hours there, while every now and then one or two in the group would drop out and rest on the seats and then rejoin. We left a bit after 3am and most of the group got kebabs at a 24 hour Ali Baaba store. The night had been really fun and although I had accidentally spilt beer on Mi’er at one stage and bumped her on the head during a poorly executed spin move, it had been really nice meeting her. She is an interesting girl with a unique and refreshing perspective on most things and I hoped that the fun night we had spent would be the beginning of a strong friendship.

Sunday was the college’s official day of rest, yet many still continued to drink throughout the day. I was awoken by a phone call from Caz suggesting that we avoid Sunday brunch and go out to get our own food. It was a great idea; Sunday brunch is notoriously one of the worst meals at college. The idea is people can sleep in and still have a hot greasy breakfast until 1pm, but the problem is the scrambled eggs and bacon fester in their respective metal trays until they become quite revolting to eat. Last year, several of us found hairs in our scrambled eggs and not the regular hairs that one may find, these hairs were short black and curly. Enough said. Avoid John’s brunch.

Anyway we got some lunch and some lovely dessert and decided to go for a walk somewhere. We ended up heading to the lake where we spotted some pedal boats going around. “Ooh lets go on one,” Caz suggested, “we can go under the big water jet.” “Sure, why not” I replied enthusiastically. So we walked around the lake, found the hire place and hopped in our little plastic boat. We only had half an hour, so we pedalled frantically to get to the water jet.

Now for those who don’t know Canberra, the city is next to quite a large lake, which features a large fountain which thrusts a jet of water perhaps 50 meters high and the wind and gravity carry this water and cause it to land reasonably close to the fountain.

We reached the fountain and sure enough I steered us right under it and we got a few drops on us in the process.
“Whoo that was fun hey Caz?” I asked.
“Yeah. Hey lets go under where the water is landing!” She suggested excitedly.
“Umm sure…” I replied.
So I turned the boat around and we headed for where the water was landing. The bulk was cascading in about a 10m by 5m strip, so we thought we’d pedal along the length of that strip. When we entered the “landing zone” the sky turned dark; I couldn’t even see the sun. Water bucketed down on us with immense force, stronger than some of the most vicious rainstorms I have been in and the drops were big and soaking. My instinct was to steer out straight away, but Caz had a maniacal grin on her face and was gripping the steering rod with extreme determination piloting us into the water. All I could do was scream until I wrenched control of the steering rod and pedalled like crazy to get us out of there.
“Whoooo yeah,” Caz exclaimed while laughing heavily at how soaking wet we were.
I’m sure we would have stayed drier if we had actually fallen into the lake and swum back to shore. Although I thought she was a maniac at the time, it is things like this that makes her one of my best friends. We get up to so many silly crazy things and I love her for it. Her friendship really does make living in Canberra so much easier.

We gently pedalled back to the boat hire place and stepped onto the pier dripping with water and with huge smirks on our faces. We made our way back to college and soon enough the last day of holidays was over. It was time to get back to reality.